Gone Away From Me
by AlyssaPierceArrow
Summary: Following the violent suicide of her father in the wake of the stock market crash of 1929, and in search of an escape to the simplicity she knew as a child in rural Virginia, Alice Ostergaard comes to Franklin County, VA by herself with intentions to move into a family home. There she meets the Bondurant boys...
1. Chapter 1

_~~ Hi All! First of all thank you to everyone who is following the story! Second, I use music when I write (although this is my first fanfic I do write other stuff), so I'm going to be adding accompanying tracks to the documents if you'd like to listen to what I picture would be the proper soundtrack music as it were~~_

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Queue "From This Valley" by the Civil Wars

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Jack Bondurant swilled another batch of Cricket's homemade shine around a few times in a mason jar, smelling the fumes…and nearly burning his corneas on the unholy mixture. It was awful. If only he could get Forrest and Howard to teach him something. He cast a sideways glance at Cricket, who looked reluctantly at him with still the slightest shred of hope that Jack might find something complimentary to say about it. They were trying a new Cornmeal shine recipe that Cricket swore would eventually develop into something sellable…or at least palatable. Jack shrugged and smiled at Cricket. He felt protective of the other boy. "Hell, it ain't so bad." He took a tentative sip and grimaced. The boys were sitting at the edge of the station porch, leaning against opposite posts facing each other. It was one of the best places for enjoying the late summer Virginia sun. Then they heard it. Or perhaps they felt it first, a change in the air. It was Cricket who perked up first, his eyebrows rising and eyes sparkling, but with a quivering lower chin which belied his uncertainty. Cars didn't always sound like that in this part of the piedmont. And it could mean any number of different things. At the very least it hailed the arrival of an interesting visitor. At the most… Jack scrambled to attention to stand with Cricket, who had sprung up to face whatever was coming their way.

"V-12" Jack cooed. "398 cid."

"Whassat mean, Jack?." Cricket chirped.

"Faaaast." Jack drawled. "Real Fast."

Roaring up the lane to Blackwater Station, kicking and spitting a fit of dust behind it was a navy blue Pierce Arrow 1931 hard top with white walled tires.

"Oh shit, boy! Wait till you see this here." Jack hopped off of the porch and went towards the pumps. They weren't strictly full service, but Jack was sure whoever was behind the wheel did not know that. And he wasn't sure someone who drove a car like that was used to pumping their own gas. As it pulled up, Jack could hear the purr of the engine and see the gleam of the paint when the sun hit the hood. Something was strange about the car, most notably the fact that the driver was wearing lace driving gloves….and lipstick. A smile peeled across Jack's face and he nudged Cricket as discreetly as he could manage. "Crick….it's a girl."

Cricket grinned.

When the car stopped at the pump, the window was open, and the brim of a pretty felt hat peeked out of the window, the driver tipping her head gently so she wouldn't bump it on the window frame. She tipped her eyes to the boys, smiling. "Hi, y'all!"

Cricket nodded, gave a half-wave, and shuffled around the car, feeding gas into the pump and moving around to fill the gas tank. Jack had resisted the urge to hop onto the running board and peek inside at the cream leather interior and wooden dash.

"Hi, Miss." He tipped his hat and then removed it with his left hand to place it against his chest. "I'm Jack Bondurant, welcome to Blackwater Station."

"Well, Hi Jack Bondurant." She smiled at him and put out a crocheted white lace gloved hand to shake his. "I'm Alice Ostergaard." Her ghostly pale skin was dotted with freckles across her nose. She made a sheepish face. "Maybe you could help me?"

Jack nodded vigorously. "Sure um…how…how can I help?"

"Well," she sighed and dropped her hand into the passenger's seat, picking up a map. She contorted her lower jaw in confusion. "I'll show you." She put the map in her lap and went to open her door, but Cricket had joined them now and in a show of gentlemanly grace, he swept in and opened her door for her, and she stepped out in low heeled pumps and a calf length crepe de chine light blue dress. Later, when they were all still trying to sort her out Bertha would quietly breathe into Jack's ear over sandwiches and sarsaparilla that Alice looked like something out of a magazine. She walked around to the hood of the car and spread out the map. Cricket blushed when he realized he was staring at the seams of her stockings as they snaked up the backs of her legs. Soon, he wouldn't see her as a "girl" at all, but something else. Better, perhaps.

"All right," Alice began. "So…we're here….I think." She pointed to the turnoff to Blackwater Station on the map. "Right?" She searched the boys' faces for recognition. "Um, yeah," Jack said. "Here's where you turned…and this area here is right where we are." She nodded. "All right, perfect. So I'm trying to get to the McLure house? Which I think is here," she pointed to an area on the other side of the pond at Blackwater Station. Close by. "Red McLure was my grandmamma's brother. He died a few years ago." Along with everyone else, she thought. "At any rate, I'm moving there, but I need to find out where it is first."

Jack's thoughts were moving faster than he could command them. _Shit shit shit._ What the hell was he supposed to tell this girl? His head was spinning. He couldn't imagine this girl living in that house on it's best day…but now? "Yeah, yeah, um…we knew ol' Red. Kinda kept to himself a lot…but he's been gone a long time and the house….well I don't think you can live there. It ain't the house it was when he lived there. We had a bad flood last year and the house is in a valley. Damn road was washed out, and there was flooding. I can take you to see it?" He watched her face fall…."But I don't know if it'll help ya. I'm sure you can live there sometime...but somebody's gonna need to do some work on it before then."

She paused. "Well, shit." She'd given up worrying about profanities. It seemed no one cared anymore, and she'd been raised around it anyway. Truth to tell, she had enjoyed her childhood, traveling out and living in rustic logging camps in western Virginia. Then, home had been Williamsburg, but it took quite a bit of serious involvement on her father's part to be on site making sure everything ran smoothly, so they lived in logging camps any time it wasn't "winter". She walked around the car, leaving her map carelessly on the top of the hood, and plopped down on the running board, resting her chin on her hands and her elbows on her knees.

Cricket spoke for the first time "Where'd you drive from?" He asked.

She sighed "Charlotte." Even saying the name filled her heart with dread. Only ghosts back there. Her father's, primarily. And the sounds she'd never get out of her head. When he'd come to her with his voice flat and dead and said "They're taking the house," she'd been upset, but as a Virginian by birth who had spent most of her time there, not heartbroken. Her father's house in Charlotte was his prize, not hers. Bought with timber money and built of stone. And it was just a house. She'd sat there alone for six months after he was gone while the bank's grace period ran out with the clock. His timber company had folded in '29. And since the house was being built by the senior Ostergaard himself, it had been, as had everything else, a work in progress, an homage to perceived perfection. So when the timber company finally folded due to the depression, they held out as long as they had with his vast savings, but keeping up with appearances was paramount. They weren't moving and they weren't changing, seemed his mantra. She bought her big, beautiful car for her birthday and let it sit in the driveway. She had dresses enough for three years even if she wore each one only once. And then the buying had to stop. Paintings he refused to sell. She donated the paintings to a museum in Richmond. Sent them home. North Carolina had betrayed her. Virginia was home. She would remember her nights packing just as she remembered the crack of the gunshot and the pooling of bright red blood on the white marble floor. She and Lettie sitting at the empty dining room table watching the sun set and not bothering to turn the lights on. Resting over lemonade after hours and hours of packing. And then she had remembered she could escape into the woods back home, somewhere quiet her favorite uncle had lived. Any place was better than Charlotte. Shame, disgrace, regret. If a fast car couldn't take you away from those things, what was it good for? So, there, alone, homeless, she felt a peace she couldn't recall having felt since she was a child. She looked up at Jack Bondurant, "Is there a hotel around here?"

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Queue "The Carnivale Convoy" - Composer Jeff Beal

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Jack smiled "If I tell you, will you promise to come back here for dinner? Meet my friends and folks?" She put out her hand to shake in agreement with his terms. Then she said goodbye to Cricket, to whom she was formally introduced. He checked the oil as a last measure, and they left the side of the hood up so the boys could watch the engine turn over and hear the car start. Then they closed up and left her with specific instructions to the hotel, and more important to Jack, directions back. She smiled on the way down the drive. They couldn't be much younger than she was at twenty-four.

As she pulled out of Blackwater Station and was flying down the road, Forrest and Howard glimpsed her behind the wheel of the gleaming car as they passed in the jalopie. While Howard stared openly at her face, Forrest, his view blocked by his brother's big gawking curly head, could only catch a glimpse of her hand, dangling delicately in it's white lace, turning orange in the now fading sunlight, fingers open slightly as the air pushed by the speeding car rushed past between them.


	2. Chapter 2

Alice stood in the fading light of her hotel room, checking her face in the mirror over the dresser. She had sat on the bed to cry for a few minutes, more out of relief than anything else, but she certainly didn't want to give her hosts the impression she'd been crying. She had checked into the hotel after meeting Jack and Cricket but that hadn't been the end of her errands in town. She'd had to be followed like a mother duck by four young boys who worked as porters for the hotel, with dollies, over to the Franklin post office where the postmaster had been happy to see her, or rather, happy to be rid of her, where she'd learned that her trunks had been an inconvenience at best. Then she walked along to a bakery in town where she'd bought pies. She vaguely remembered from her childhood when her father had brought with him fine Scotch whiskey to his foreman whenever their train would rattle into a new logging camp, as a gesture of beginning a new season of logging, his trust, his friendship, and his hoped-for fealty. But she couldn't exactly purchase liquor, and even if she could, she'd seen crates of shine under a tarp in a truck at Jack's place, and had good reason to think he made it…or at lest knew who had. She'd been hearing rumors about Franklin County since she was small. She couldn't rightly bring something she knew they already had in spades. So she brought back with her boxes tied with strings, inside fresh pies only made that afternoon. After that she'd locked her door and slept, setting the little alarm clock beside her bed, waking when it chattered its little bell at her at 5:00. She kicked at one of the trunks on her way to the bath, shoving it aside. After her errands and her much needed nap she'd been filled with mixed emotions, seeing her entire life crammed into such a small space made her feel as though she herself were insignificant. She thought somehow that she'd lived long enough and known enough people to not end up alone this way. She thought of all the warm, doughy arms of the female bakers she'd been pressed into as a child in the logging camp cafeterias, and how Lettie had taught her over several seeks to perfect the way she set her hair at night for finger waves. How could she be alone when there had been so many of them once? So she cried. But she'd found herself laughing to herself halfway through for being so silly. Certainly, she was alone, but so many were alone and destitute. At least she'd had a place on the map. A trajectory. A beacon. That was so much more than so many she'd known had left. So she'd wiped her eyes, picked up her train case and clothes, and headed into the bathroom.

Now, standing in the mirror in her room she assessed herself. She'd picked a long midnight blue dress mostly because it had been accessible, silk, with fabric that pooled around her feet in waves, scalloped cap sleeves and the back cut out, a line of buttons running from her waist to her calves. "Oh Christ, you look ridiculous." She hadn't noticed how long the "I" in her Christ, had been, but her Virginia was showing. Her drawl was coming back, replacing her soft cultured Charlotte southern lilt she'd been expected to use there.

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Cue "Love is War" - American Young

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So when she arrived at Blackwater Station, and saw Jack and Cricket standing on the porch, she was slightly relieved. Cricket was wearing a nice vest and a freshly starched shirt underneath, and newly mended, crisp pants, and Jack was wearing a beige suit. At least she wouldn't feel so overdressed. It was Jack who scrambled off the porch first to open her door, but Cricket whose hand was extended as Jack moved aside to pull the door with him so she could get out, and which she took. They were both telling her all about the station and how they served food and drinks, too, and how Jack's father's father had built the place, and how he lived there with his two brothers. Halfway up to the porch, she remembered the pies, and Jack retrieved them. "Forrest! Howard!" he called.

Howard Bondurant stepped away from his post at the bar where he was leaning and sipping shine. He was supposed to be grilling, but the pork and chicken were finished, and just sitting over the coals out back, waiting to be served. Jack had spoken with his brothers as soon as they pulled up from their visit to the stills that afternoon, starting his relation of the tale before the truck had even come to a stop, referencing the girl in the car he was sure they must have seen on their way in. He explained to an expressionless Forrest and a befuddled Howard why he'd invited a stranger over for dinner.

"Well, she's nice. And pretty, real pretty. But also, she's Red McLure's niece 'er some such. That old coot let that old house go to shit. She's wantin' to fix it all up and move in there, Lord knows why. Probably 'count of the depression. We got a still right on the edge of that property, not a stone's throw from that house. I think we should make sure'n git her on our side."

Forrest grunted and brushed past Jack on his way in the house and Howard shrugged and went to follow him in, punching Jack on the bicep "What's Bertha gon' think of that, huh kid?" Jack glowered "It ain't like that! She's interesting, is all. I woulda invited Bertha if I thought her daddy'd let her come!" Howard started at him in the doorway of the station with a puzzled look on his face which told his brother _"Easy. Teasing."_ Neither of Jack's brothers had seemed interested in what he was telling them, but he did notice with a note of satisfaction that Forrest had gone upstairs to change, and Howard had put on a new shirt which he actually tucked in. Jack felt a stab of pride. He thought maybe he could impress his brothers with such a fine guest in the house. And maybe he would. And here was their guest, Howard suspected, from the infernal racket his brother was making towards the front of the house. He reluctantly called "Forrest," in the direction of his brother's office, setting down his shine and making his way to the door. When he got there, Howard, for once, understood what Jack had been going on about. On Cricket's arm was a well dressed, well endowed, ivory skinned southern belle, with finger waved hair that could have been anywhere from red to gold to brown at any time, in different light. Beautiful, he suspected. Or at least he thought she might be. Her head was tipped down to look at her feet as her left hand raised her hem so she could step on the first step. He felt Forrest join him and took that as his cue to actually exit the station and greet the person on the porch. Jack had his hat on a pair of white boxes tied with string and was standing with his chest puffed out, enough to make Howard want to cuff him on the head, pretty girl or not. "Howard and Forrest Bondurant, may I present" Jack got a kick out of that, he'd heard a slick actor in a talkie say "may I present" and thought he'd gotten the usage right "Alice Ostergaard."

She lifted her head after stepping up and fixing her dress, and her eyes flicked over both boys, a warm, friendly smile on her lips. _All right, Jack,_ thought Howard, _you did one good_. She had what Danny would call "Meat on them bones," and her face was what their momma would have called "Pretty as a picture." Enormous brown eyes, long eyelashes and porcelain skin, a plump little mouth, freckles, and, since she seemed to be wearing her expression blankly on her face, Howard thought, an open heart. Howard heard Forrest grumble his assent behind him. But it was the kind of sound he didn't want to hear his brother make, as he imagined it would be more appropriate in intimate surroundings. Cricket was grinning like a fool. Howard Bondurant was feeling pretty confident on his own, thinking himself the most composed man in the situation for the first time in a….for the first time. He resisted the urge to look around at the three men around him and say something, but he didn't want to embarrass the boys or anger Forrest. He was hungry. He just wanted to eat. He was the first to put his hand out "I'm Howard," he said. "Hi" she said, smiling, gently taking her right arm from Cricket's to shake his. "And my brother Forrest," Jack said. She smiled and put her hand out to take his. He took it and squeezed ever so gently, and she thought she felt something in her melt, which couldn't be, because she was still standing straight up. "Hello, Forrest," she said. He grumbled "H'lo."

Cricket took her arm again, protectively. There was something about her Cricket liked. She never stared at his limp, or even seemed to notice, even walking so close. Everyone else always noticed. Except the Bondurant boys, which was part of why he liked them all so much. "After you," Howard said, and she and Cricket went through the doorway as Jack fell in step behind and Howard and Forrest waited to watch her walk. There was a moment of tension between the brothers when they both went to fill the same doorway, but Howard stepped back to let Forrest through as always. Maggie came out of the kitchen holding a bowl of mashed potatoes. She smiled and looked Alice over when the younger girl came in. "I'm Maggie Beaufort" she said, reaching across the table. There was a moment between the girls, as there often is. A sense of _"I know what you are,"_ as people sometimes think they can neatly package each other. The ruined socialite and the feather dancer. A sizing up. Two girls in the woods can be best friends or bitter enemies. But Alice's face broke open with a big smile and she reached across the table "Alice Ostergaard," and the tension was gone. "Nice to have another girl around here," Maggie said, as she headed back to the kitchen with Howard to see how his grilling was coming along. "Oh!" Alice said, and turned to Jack, looking at the boxes. "I brought pie….well, I bought pie. I'm sorry…" she looked with embarrassment around the room and then laughed at herself, encouraging the others to do the same, which Jack and Cricket did. "No kitchen yet."

Maggie grinned. "That's perfect. Howard started picking at the blackberry squares already."

They sat around the table, Alice between Cricket and Forrest, Maggie Between Jack and Howard, Howard beside Forrest and Jack beside Cricket. While they ate, only Maggie, Jack and Cricket asked questions. Howard was eating and staring at the pies on the plates Maggie had set them in on the counter. Forrest was quiet with grunts and mumbles throw in between, and a quiet countenance that Alice would come to know him for. They were awake until quite late, after midnight, talking through dessert and moonshine, which Alice and Maggie declined. Howard noticed Forrest was awake far later than he usually was. He himself was usually the last one awake, sometimes with Jack, and sometimes not. Howard smiled at himself when he was sure his mouth was hidden behind his shine jar. Forrest had never cared if company or customers were still at the station, he would have been in bed at least an hour and half before now.

They listened, interested, as Alice spoke candidly about her father, and the timber business, growing up between the wilds of western Virginia and Williamsburg, how her father had died, what happened to the money, and the house, and the horses they loved which they'd had to sell, and her mamma, who had died in a logging camp along with half the workers when the flu came through. She told of why she'd chosen this place "When I was small, and we'd be in the camps, the men would drink shine at night, especially on Sundays, and Saturday night. Most logging camps only take Sundays off, but my daddy wanted all of Sunday and half of Saturday for the people who worked for him. He thought rested workers made better workers, and he didn't come from where he got to, so he appreciated work. Anyways, they'd always be talking about Franklin like it was some sort of magical place. I didn't understand until later why they were so keen on this place, even if they'd never been here. I found out when I was older that my momma's uncle lived here. So when it came time to leave Charlotte, and I knew I had a house free and clear out here in the quiet and wild, I packed. And here I am. So tomorrow I go to the registry of deeds and have it transferred to my name."

Howard had a thought "Hey, Forrest, how 'bout you take Miss Alice out to see Old Red's place tomorrow?" Forrest snapped his thick neck around to look at his brother. "Me n' Cricket are already takin' her," Jack said. "Already told her we would." Forrest then slowly moved his head around and stared at Jack, and grunted. He turned to Alice "Maybe it's time you and Maggie be gettin' back home." If Forrest felt the need to say everything he thought, he'd say it was late and they were both unfamiliar with the roads, he'd tell her people drank shine and then got in their cars and didn't think about what might happen, and he'd say that the ATU officers around, no matter how they dressed, weren't exactly gentlemen. When both girls rose, Jack offered to pick up, and Cricket said he'd help. Howard was helping himself to another piece of pie. Maggie bustled around, gathering her things. Then Forrest walked them out to the porch. Maggie hopped into her car and waved "Bye Forrest, bye Alice!"

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Cue "Speakeasy Kiss" - Composer James Newton Howard

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Alice waved and then called her goodbyes to the boys inside. She teetered a little bit in her heels on the steps, holding her dress up so she wouldn't step on the hem and go tumbling into the dirt. She couldn't see it, but Forrest's arm was out behind her, a protective shadow circling her waist a foot away from her skin, there in case she fell. She made her way to the car, and as she opened the door, Forrest, lumbering behind her, held onto it as she gracefully gathered herself into the driver's seat, nodding for him to close it. He shut the door and only then realized part of her dress was caught in it. "Um…" he said. "Oh!" she cried. She laughed. "I'm so clumsy sometimes." Forrest opened the door and she went to reach for the fabric, but he gently gathered the deep blue silk of her hem in his calloused, rough hands, rubbing it between his fingers before tucking it into the car with her. "Thank you. Well, I suppose I may see you tomorrow. Jack and Cricket are taking me out in the woods once I have them switch the deed." Forrest nodded. "Tomorrow" he said. He sat up on the porch long after that, staring out into the yard, until he pulled himself up and stocked into the station, locking the door behind him. He checked his office to be sure everything was in order, then lumbered upstairs. He rolled into his bed on the floor, sighing and grunting to himself. He turned and looked at the small nightstand he had beside his bed, at the photo of his parents before the boys and their sisters were born. "Hm," he said to himself, and rolled over to sleep.

When Alice clattered up the steps in the hotel, she had a smile on her face, a smile she'd worn all night. Slipping out of her dress and after changing into her nightgown, she sat on the bed and put the dress on a hanger to go in her closet, running her fingers over the little bit of dust on the hem from where she'd gotten it caught. She smiled to herself and tumbled into bed, falling into the kind of sleep she'd had as a child.


	3. Chapter 3

Hi Everyone! I just wanted to say thank you so much to everyone who has followed! This chapter, unfortunately, might be a little boring. It's a lot of setting the stage for things to come, so a necessary chapter if a bit of a tedious one. Maybe that's why it took me so long to write it! That and grad school. I hope you all enjoy!

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Queue The Band Perry - "Pioneer"

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Alice headed into Rocky Mount the next morning to meet with a stout, puffy little magistrate, scuffling around a paper-cluttered office in his pinstripe suit, strawberry jam on his white shirt, almost hidden by his tie. She liked him. He called her "Miss" at the beginning of their meeting, but by the end she was referred to exclusively as "Dear Child," which she liked, having heard it so often elsewhere. Growing up around adults, most away from home and their own families, she was accustomed to being fussed over by older people. She had had to present to him several different documents, her uncle's death certificate he had on file since it occurred in Franklin County, but he needed her grandmother's as his next of kin, then her mother's, and proof of who she was and where she was born. She last presented a photo of herself when she was little at a family get together in the mountains, sitting between Red McLure and her father. He made her swear before witnesses (his secretary and that of another public employee) that to the best of her knowledge, she was the most eligible descendant to inherit the property, and knew of no others who could contest her claim. It was then that the new deed to the property bordering the Bondurant's was written up in her name, signed and witnessed.

She sat on the bed in her hotel, changed out of her light blue and gray suit, sitting in her pantalets and chemise. She still had her white lace gloves on, and she carefully placed the deed in front of her on the bed, staring at it for just a moment, breathing in a long breath and sighing out some of her worries. She'd have to take a safety deposit box at the bank, which she hadn't yet visited, to be sure the deed was stored properly, and all the other legal documents she'd had to tote along with her. She unpinned the little fascinator she'd worn in her hair and stripped of her gloves, heading to the telephone in her bedroom. She asked the operator to connect her with Blackwater Station, and when Howard's voice sleepily droned "Blackwater Station" into the receiver, she looked at the clock. It was eleven thirty in the morning. Given the amount of shine she'd seen him consume the night before, she figured that would be about right. He'd just woken up. "Hello, this is Alice Ostergaard calling, is this Howard?"

"Eyeah"

"Is Jack close by? He and Cricket were supposed to take me to see my uncle's house." She hadn't made plans with Cricket and Jack the night before because she hadn't an idea of how long the deed business would take altogether and wouldn't want to keep them waiting. She had told them she would ring when she returned.

"Jack? Yeah, he's right here." Howard said as he held the phone up and away from Jack's aggressive hands attempting to wrest it from him, finally relinquishing it when he realized there was no sense in teasing him.

"Hello, this is Jack Bondurant" he crooned into the phone.

"Hi Jack! Would you and Cricket mind taking me to see the house? You said you knew a quick path through the woods?"

"Yes, yes, of course. Come right over!"

She changed into a pair of tweed riding pants and a beige crepe de chine blouse, buttons of green, with three quarter sleeves. When she inserted her boot hooks and pulled on her brown field boots she could smell the dirt from the stables, and felt a little tug in her heart. She thought of her father, who had always had a bit of a hitch in his step since having polio as a child, and how he liked that most of the surveying in logging camps was done on horseback. It was always faster and easier to cover ground that way, lame (human) leg or not, especially over uneven terrain that had been logged out and scraped up. It could take loggers an hour or more to climb up to a cutting copse, slightly less to climb down. In order to visit more than four of such copses in a given day, horses were the best choice. They'd never spoken about it, but she often imagined her father loved horses so much because he thought they made his disability less pronounced. Despite his good standing in business and in the community, few things allowed him to feel and appear physically comparable to other men. On four legs, he was always more equal than on two. She brushed out her finger waves, tucked her keys into a small sachet purse which she put in her pocket, and tucked the deed into a little leather envelope. She'd lock it under the car seat in the little lock box that was held there.

She rounded the top of stairs at the end of the hallway, heading down to the bustling epicenter of the little hotel, it's front desk. There was someone standing at the front desk, condescending to the manager. She couldn't hear what he said, but she could tell by his tone what his attitude was. She never liked the words "rube" or "hick," and from the sound of his voice and the way that he stood like he was standing in a pile of dirty hay in his fancy, albeit, she noted, ridiculous outfit, she could tell he was the kind of person who classified people this way. His voice, she noted, was nasally, and clipped. She almost giggled to herself, examining the hells of his shiny shoes and his pin stripe pants, already rimmed with red clay on the hems. She skipped down the last few stairs and ducked out around a pair of men carrying a steamer trunk into the lobby. She thought about Lettie, how she always used to say that part of having style was dressing appropriately. She shivered as she walked around to her car. The sweet, cool fall air had come in with the clouds that had rolled over the sky that morning. Now the sky above her was just a dull, mild bone color, and she suspected they should just wait for more rain. Reluctantly, she turned and went back into the hotel, taking the porch steps quickly, intending just to run inside and get a riding coat, or a sweater. But the man at the counter had just finished his business and was tucking something into the pocket of his coat. Before she could put her riding boot on the first step of the carpeted staircase, he had turned to her. She doubted she'd ever seen anyone alive use that much hair oil, even in Charlotte. "Going riding?" he quipped.

She smiled, but kept her mouth tight and closed. "Something like that." Something felt wrong to her. Instead of heading up the stairs, she brushed past him as quickly as she could, heading towards the dining room. She knew that he knew she had changed her intended course, and she knew he knew she knew it. She made her way to a little end table in the dining room used for breakfast, and straight to a bowl of fruit. She felt the feeling one only feels when they know someone else's eyes are on them. Carefully, deliberately, she placed one large apple into the pocket of her pants, as through toting it as a reward for a special animal, and turning, she rubbed the other off on her pant leg and steeled herself to walk past the guest. As she walked by, she bit, hard, tearing off a chunk of fruit and nosily crunching on it. She was an expert in being just unladylike enough to deter unwanted attention. "You're not from here," he said after her, as she fooled with the sticky door handle. She turned and smiled her best fake cotillion smile. "No." She kept her back to the door and pushed through it. "Not always!" She gave him her most charming smile. "Good afternoon!" When she was able to turn away from the hotel and go towards where she had parked her Pierce Arrow, she hurried more than she would have liked to admit to herself, and when she sat on the envelope with the deed inside she'd stuffed in her back pocket she was grateful it had been covered up. Then she started the car and roared away, kicking clods of dried mud behind her tires.

She noticed that as she moved further and further away from the hotel, the more comfort she felt. When she finally pulled into Blackwater Station, she breathed a sigh of relief, and sat in the car a moment, catching her breath for a reason she couldn't have told if she'd been asked. Before long, Cricket and Jack had appeared, and the three crossed from beside the pumps where the chickens liked to pick fights with each other, over to the small pond, taking a nearly invisible trail which ran beside it. She never would have noticed it if they had not lead her this way. This further affirmed her belief that the Bondurant men were involved in moonshining, where it was so important to acquire the skill of being able to expertly conceal paths and buildings and hiding places. "Those your riding boots?" Cricket asked, as the three bushwhacked through the overgrown hedges.

"They were!" She said. "Now, I suspect they're my snake boots."

"Well, we do see 'em" Jack said.

Alice shuddered a little bit. That was one thing she hadn't missed in Charlotte, or in Williamsburg when she and her father were hope from the logging camps. They didn't call the animal known as a "Timber Rattlesnake," by that name because they were desert dwellers. Often displaced by logging operations, it was common for there to be rewards offered (by her father in particular) for these animals, who could cause quite a bit of trouble if they decided to strike. By the time she was thirteen, she had learned the "shoot first, scream later" technique taught her by a particularly rugged female logger, larger than many of the men, who had been a local legend to the camps for many years until she finally retired to the coast. They made their way through the woods, cutting their own path where necessary from the one that already existed. When they finally had reached the house, she was almost unsure that it had ever been one. The more she stared, the more nervous Jack and Cricket seemed to get. But as she looked at the small two floor log cabin, she could imagine the way the roof had sloped once, the way the glass had looked with light behind it in the middle of the night, and how the porch would look covered in drifts of sideways blowing snow.  
"Can we go inside?" She looked back and forth between the boys. "You think it's safe?" And so the three gingerly took the steps, one step at a time, each person at a time. It was actually a very adequate house for one person, or a small family. Thankfully, the foundation was made of smooth river stone, and, she thought, would make a nice cool fruit cellar in the fall. Though the wood was rotted through the first floor after the flooding that the boys had described to her, the rocks had not washed away, though she could see where the road in to the property had. She was making mental notations of what had to be taken out, gutted and replaced, and how long it would take, and how expensive. She still had some money left. Her father had started a very small fund for her that the stock market crash wasn't able to touch, mostly because it had been in gold that he had kept in a safe, but she certainly was no longer anywhere near as comfortable as she had been, and that, of course, would not last forever. She was testing the strength of the seal on the windows, when she came to a small writing desk. On it was a small photograph from the early 1900s, a mountain family all lined up on a ridge for a tintype. She smiled, holding the small frame in her hands. In the front row, the only child, was her mother, at maybe three years old, standing on Alice's grandmother's lap. "Whatcha got there?" Jack asked. She passed him the photo and gestured towards the tiny toddler in the front. "It's my mother." She placed it back on the desk, a promise to herself that she would be back, that there was no need to take it with her.

When they left, collecting brambles and twigs on their clothes as they walked, and emerged to climb up the hill to Blackwater Station from the entrance to the path, she realized that despite how long they had been gone, though they had spent a few hours in the woods, it may only take five to ten minutes to reach her house from Blackwater Station, a helpful distance if she ever needed sugar or coffee. "Wait," Jack said softly, and they hid in the copse of trees beside the pond. There were a few cars lined up in front of the station that were now pulling away. Jack recognized one of them as belonging to Deputies Richards & Abshire, but the others he could not place. When the yard had been cleared, they walked Alice to her car, speaking with her for a few minutes while she waited for the car to warm up. It had grown colder without any of them seeming to notice. As the two boys waved down the lane until they could no longer make out the Pierce Arrow, Forrest stood inside with Maggie, fuming over his encounter with Rakes. Innocent of what had transpired, but figuring that someone had probably wanted an introduction in order to purchase more shine, Jack didn't think anything of it. He assumed, like most things, that while he would be the last to know, he would find out eventually. When Jack went inside to ask Maggie to heat up some cider for he and Cricket, he heard Forrest and Howard speaking in Forrest's office, talking low. Maggie put the cider on, waiting for the kettle full of mulling spices to whistle, taking out mugs for two. If there was one thing Maggie was, she was tight lipped. She wouldn't warn the two eldest that she knew their little brother was listening. When he carefully positioned himself outside Forrest's office to overhear their conversation, he was hurt by what he heard.

Howard was pacing, while Forrest sat, he could tell that much by the sounds of their voices. "Think about it, Forrest, she shows up here, and then that motherfucker comes outta whatever perfume shop he crawled out of, tryin' to shake us down. What're the odds she comes rollin' up to this very station the day before Wardell comes in here talkin' about fee this fee that? I think they was countin' on us tellin' em where to take it. I'd count 'em real smart to know that in advance and plan for it. I ain't sayin I think so, I'm just saying we'd be stupid not to consider for half a second that maybe she's their man…er…woman."

* * *

Queue Composer Jeff Beal - "Fix Up Dora Mae"

* * *

Forrest nodded and grunted. Jack was so bewildered that he made himself visible in the doorway, his brow furrowed and the line of his mouth revealing that he was troubled. He looked at both of his brothers, and before he could be scolded, said "If you can even think that about her, you don't even deserve to know her."

"Do you, Jack?" Howard asked. He only meant for the question to inspire his brother to think, but he was angered nonetheless. He spun on his heels and picked up the tray of mugs Maggie had wordlessly prepared for him, stalking out of the station, and composing himself before sitting for a drink with his friend.


	4. Chapter 4

Alice stood on the small balcony outside her room at the hotel, leaning over with her elbows on the railing. She wasn't even sure she was supposed to be out there; she'd had to climb through the window to get outside. She thought as long as no one told her to do otherwise, she'd sit for a time and enjoy the smells of the fall evening, watching the lights go on in Rocky Mount and the people shuffling to and fro as the night came on. She stood flat on one foot and balanced the other on the tip of her riding boot, rocking it lazily back and forth; fine red clay sifting off the soles. The air had grown colder over the past few weeks, she'd noticed. She had been parking her car at the Bondurant's filling station, and hiking the few minutes into the woods to work on her uncle's house, taking out rotted furniture and burning it in the piles of dead leaves she was starting to amass. She had started by raking piles of leaves that had already begun their slow process of decay, and setting them on fire next to the small pond, which grew into a task of burning anything she thought she couldn't use that was safe to burn. Her main objective was to remove whatever wasn't salvageable from the house before the winter came on and she couldn't do any work on it whatsoever. She hoped to at least protect the structure over the winter so it would not incur any more damage before she was able to call in workers in the spring.

* * *

Queue Composer Jeff Beale - "Stom's Coming"

* * *

She looked around and noticed something strange. Some of the windows in the hotel were open, but most had their shades drawn, and behind the other windows, it was dark, or the guests were sitting at their desks writing, or reading, unpacking or preparing to make their way downstairs for dinner. Such was not the case in one particular window. Normally, Alice wouldn't have been staring into someone else's private space other than to run her eyes over the windows in a surveying process, but her eyes caught on another pair of eyes, staring back at her. It was the strange man, the one she had seen at first at the hotel desk, and afterward in passing downtown. A prohi, by the looks of him. They'd encountered their fair share of them when she was young. One of the things which made a career of working long hours in the logging business was the ability to unwind at the end of an exhausting week, and white lightening was a common enough recreational choice for the loggers, which made the logging sites common enough targets for prohis. Her father had been of the opinion that what a man does with his own liver is his own business, so long as it did not interfere with other facets of his life, so he had tried to protect his camps as much as possible from searches and seizures, a stance the prohis resented with vengeful vehemence.

Alice was staring at the man long enough to forget that she was staring, though it hadn't mattered much. He had not averted his gaze in some time. Typically, when caught staring, for whatever reason, it had been her experience that none other than the most emboldened men would have retained their affixed countenance once being noticed. She also had the experience that those who kept staring were generally not to be trifled with, and that avoidance of men of this type was the wisest course of action in those situations. This one was no exception. Despite his well oiled hair and his fierce, icy gaze he gave her the impression he was looking at her like a predator looks at prey, instead of the way one human would look at another, and she shivered despite the warm sweater she'd put on over her blouse. He was sitting in his window shining one of his shoes as he stared, though he never looked at it, just continued with the same repetitive, continuous motion long enough for Alice to be startled into thinking it was vulgar, the motions he was making as he stared at her like that. And with no shame! She shuddered and couldn't resist the urge to shoot him a nasty look, mimicking the 'You should be ashamed of yourself,' reaction she'd seen given by other women. Then, gracefully, and rendering least amount of enticement she could muster in her movements, she climbed back into her bedroom and shut her window with a deafening slam. Then her heartbeat quickened and she looked up, suddenly alert and terrified. She ran to her door and with a sigh of relief realized she'd locked it. She sunk down against the door, raising her knees up to her chest and hugging them closely to her. She sat there like that for some time, and had been lulled into relaxation when she heard a sound. She could have sworn she heard footsteps on the carpet outside her room, steps which ceased outside the door for what seemed like ages before turning back the way they came and repeating their receding sounds in reverse of how they had sounded on their approach. That night, with the lights off and the window closed, and her desk chair propped at an angle up against the handle of her door, she managed only a fitful sleep, dreaming of a black train and a small deer trapped on a train trestle.


	5. Chapter 5

_Hello Lovely and Patient Readers! Here is Chapter 5! Thank you for all your kind comments, Feedback, Follows and Favorites!_

* * *

Queue: Kate Rusby - "Planets"

* * *

Alice pulled into the lot at Blackwater Station, her engine roaring, her exhaust brushing aside stray leaves as she breezed in. She parked on the side, as she usually did, looked back and forth at the deserted parking lot, and wrapped the Colt M1911 semi-automatic in the scarf she'd hidden it under. She'd dug it out of one of her trunks the night after the strange encounter with her hotel neighbor only one week ago, and it had been with her ever since. An even more disturbing sight had shocked her the day before, and she was anxious to speak to someone about it. She got out of the car in her regular uniform of field boots and tweed pants, shivering in her blouse and heavy cardigan in the morning mist. She kept the gun tucked into the handkerchief and tucked it up underneath her sweater, against her back in the waist of her pants. She scuffed up the steps to the station, and entered hesitantly. It was just after 9:00, generally Maggie had breakfast ready just before 7, and after 8:30 there was a lull in diners before lunch. No one was directly inside, though she could hear shuffling and muted voices from Forrest's office, and gentle clanging and banging sounds from the food storage room.

"Maggie?" she called softly.

The older girl came busting around the corner with a cigarette in her mouth, a sack full of sugar in her left arm. "Hi, Alice, Mornin'. I just made coffee." It was Alice's custom to sit and have coffee and biscuits with Maggie and talk for a while between Maggie's shuffling before heading out to clean out her uncle's house. Usually she was far busier than today because Alice was generally earlier than she'd been this morning. But she'd had trouble sleeping in the hotel, even with the window locked and the desk chair propped up under the doorknob, and the Colt on the nightstand within arm's reach.

With a grumble, Forrest rose from his desk in his office and picked up his brown ceramic coffee mug, headed to the kitchen to freshen it up. He had learned to move quietly despite his size and strength, and wound up in the doorway, gazing quietly at the two women in intimate consort.

While Maggie poured them both a pot of fresh coffee and took biscuits out of the small oven behind her, Alice lowered her voice and leaned toward her. "May I ask you something?"

Maggie nodded " 'f course," she said, puffing out and dragging again on her Camel.

"All right, well," she proceeded to point to different places on the wooden countertop to illustrate her point. "Your room is here, and I'm here on this corner….who stays….here? He's a strange man, smells like lilac cologne and looks like a prohi? Uses more oil in his hair than the Union Pacific does on their railcars?" She pointed to the room belonging to the mysterious, frightening man. Maggie snorted with laughter at the reference, and then made a disapproving grunting sound, probably something she'd picked up from Forrest, Alice suspected.

"Charley Rakes," Maggie said, suddenly becoming serious. She had to steady her hand which was pouring the canvas sack of sugar into a tin on the back counter by the stove. "He's been causing a _lot_ of trouble around here."

Alice noted how long she'd drawn out the 'lot' to emphasize, and Alice suddenly felt cold worms writhing in her stomach despite the piping heat of the fresh coffee. She'd thought the reason she hadn't seen Jack around was because he was trying to covertly contact the girl he was always talking about, the pretty mandolin player, Bertha. But what if this were part of the trouble Maggie was talking about. Surely they would have told her if something had happened to him? Jack himself still lay huddled in his bed by this time, looking at his scrapbook he'd been putting together, wincing every time his swollen, bruised face touched his pillow the wrong way. He had begged Forrest, Maggie and Howard not to tell Alice what happened with Rakes at Cricket's house, and for once, they relented, although Forrest and Howard thought he could do with some embarrassment.

"What sort of….trouble?" She asked. Forrest strode into the kitchen then, moving behind the counter, and Maggie turned away, both girls suddenly shy at having been caught talking. Alice decided not to pressure her for an answer, but instead to keep speaking, to tell Maggie what she had seen, and if this Rakes truly was trouble for the Bondurant boys, Forrest might as well hear it.

"Something happened yesterday." Alice said.

Forrest put the coffee pot down—hard, and Maggie jumped and looked over at him.

Forrest replied but all Alice could make out was "…happened?"

She looked back and forth between the two as she told the story.

"I came back to the hotel yesterday afternoon, around sundown, and when I rounded the corner at the top of the stairs, a girl bumped into me. It wouldn't have seemed strange, except she was crying and trembling. Her hair was a mess, and her clothes were…." she was shy mentioning this in front of Forrest "awry. She didn't look injured, I've seen people injured, she was just…. frightened."

She paused, hoping that she'd conveyed the fact that something about the girl's fear had frightened her even more than the fear in the comfort women she'd seen with actual bruises in the timber camps.

"And then I saw…" she gestured towards Maggie "This 'Charley Rakes' standing in his doorway watching her go, and I know, I know she'd been in there. And then a few nights ago…"

Having seen him move only slowly and deliberately before this point, Forrest moved more quickly than Alice imagined he could, from the back corner of the counter to three feet beside Alice, and she felt a pleasant warmth spread through her belly as he approached, growing as he got closer, which caught her completely by surprise.

* * *

Queue: Kate Rusby - "You Belong to Me"

* * *

"Eyeah?" he asked, staring with intensity at her.

"Well, I was outside on the small little balcony outside my window, and I turned in the direction of the rest of the hotel and happened to see him in his window…staring. And he didn't…stop. But he knew I saw him staring. I looked right at him. I haven't slept through the night since." She looked down, embarrassed, hoping that they would catch the sentiment that she'd felt it vulgar without having to explicitly say so. Forrest slammed down his mug, harder than he'd wanted to, and started to walk out. But he paused, and turned, his big shape turning to face Alice straight on from the doorway.

"They're looking for stills in the woods. You, out there, alone….I don' like it."

It was the most she'd heard him speak. She liked the fact that he'd been open with her about the stills, even though she'd known they were there. She smiled at him. He didn't like it. He didn't like how it made him feel, out of control.

"Well…"she drew the M1911 from the back of her pants and held it out beside her safely. She turned it sideways so he could see what it was. "I'm a pretty good shot." She dropped the ammo out to show him the magazine and re-clicked it into position, and pulled the slide back and repositioned it as well to show Forrest she knew how to use it. "You don't really run around a logging camp with anything less than a .357, but I prefer a .45. Besides," she looked outside towards the short path by the pond that lead to her new house, and back at Forrest, suggesting the short distance between her house and Blackwater Station "With you-y'all…here, I didn't think I _was_ alone."

She smiled at him again and her words and her expression pulled at him like twin strings on his heart. He grunted and stalked back off to the office. She turned back to Maggie and shrugged again, re-positioning the gun in it's spot against her back.

"I can hit a knot in a tree at 30 yards!" Both girls erupted in peels of laughter, talking until nearly 10, by which time Alice scrambled off into the woods, and Maggie began table setup for lunch, smiling at how the timber baron's daughter had teased protective warmth from the unmovable mountain, Forrest Bondurant.


	6. Chapter 6

Alice sat on one of the steps of her great uncle's house that hadn't rotted out…yet. She had her picnic basket beside her, some apples and a sandwich and crackers inside, and a bottle of opened root beer next to her on the step. She planned to read some of the mail she'd received, that she could answer later. As she snacked in the late morning sunshine, she shivered slightly when a cool breeze blew dried leaves cross her tiny yard. She admired the pile of refuse and debris that she had cleaned off the porch and swept out of the first floor that morning, and looked at her handiwork on the first floor windows, which now sparkled in the light of the autumn sun, instead of reflecting nothing at all through their thick film of dust. She watched, bemusedly as Howard made his way through the woods yet again with a bucket, muttering and cursing angrily to himself and heading towards the still that bordered her property. She glanced over at her sealed up well that sat to the side of her porch. She had tried to push the large granite well cover off by herself, but had received only resistance and a pitiful grinding noise for her efforts. The cover had not budged. She knew she'd need fresh water of her own. Jack had been kind enough to let her fill the bucket she had at their pump, and that had been enough to clean the windows, but she'd need more if she intended to clean the whole house up. She took a deep breath and called out to Howard. Perhaps he'd agree to a sort of trade.

"You know, shine tastes better when you make it with well water."

He stopped, and stayed turned to the side in the direction he'd been traveling, but she knew he was listening to her. She called out again, her sweet southern voice ringing like bells off the trees and the hills around them

"I've seen you walk back and forth today about seven times filling that bucket from the creek. You must've been at it two hours already."

He stopped and put the bucket down and turned over to her.

"Yeah? And just whadda you suggest? Creek's the closest draw spot from here, and it'd be five hours if I had to pump it up at the station."

"I have a well." She pointed to the covered up stack of granite rocks a few yards away. "Help me get the lid off and dump the stale water out and you can pump all you want. That still you think you're hiding can't be more than 50 paces from here."

He sighed again, and put his bucket down, stomping through the brush with a crackling, crashing sound. He looked at the well and then walked around it, putting pressure on several different spots. Before he put any work into it, Howard needed to be sure moving the stone wasn't going to crumble the entire well altogether.

"We'd need a winch and a stand and a bucket."

Alice nodded and stood, walking over to him. "They're inside. Uncle Red made sure the well would be covered, and manageable if any of us wanted to move in." She laughed. "I've seen the winch and the stand. We could use a new rope and a deeper bucket, however."

"This is gon' take all day." Howard grumbled.

Alice grinned and clapped her hands together "So you'll help me?" she looked up at him expectantly.

* * *

Queue "Till It Runs Dry" - Holly Williams

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, Alice had her sleeves rolled up and gloves on her hands, shifting a makeshift wedge made from a piece of flint under one side of the well cover. Little by little they shifted the well cover over, and as Cricket and Jack made their way into the woods, they witnessed Howard and Alice shoving the giant well cover with great enough effort to –finally- send it tumbling and rolling down the hill, coming to rest on it's side with a –thwack!- in a wet, muddy ditch near where the pond and the creek met. Howard chuckled and took his hat off, rubbing sweat off his brow. Alice sighed and with hands on her hips puffed a breath of air up towards her forehead, trying to clear stray wisps of hair away that had come loose. She had abandoned rolling and pinning her hair to make it appear shorter in the style; now she wore it long to the side with a ribbon tying it all together in what Lettie had called a pony's tail. Alice and Howard's eyes suddenly met with great seriousness as they turned in tandem towards the well and gazed into it.

"Well, nothin' dead, in 'ere far as I can see." Howard said.

"Whats goin' on?" Asked a breathless Jack. He and Cricket had hurried the rest of the way when they saw Alice in the woods.

"Cleaning the well out!" Alice called, her voice echoing down the expanse of darkness as she peered down at the water. "Howard was pretending I'd never heard of moonshine until I told him it was here."

Howard scowled and retrieved his bucket from where it was on the porch. While he'd decided what to do about moving the stone, Alice had found rope and retrieved Howard's second bucket and attached a length to each bucket handle. Together, the two started to empty water in a ditch near where the muddy bank met the pond. When Cricket and Jack realized they could be of use instead of a nuisance, Jack offered to run back to Blackwater Station, and returned quickly with buckets. The four hauled water for the next few hours, each bucket yielding cleaner water than the last. Howard sighed and brushed his hand over his brow as his pocket watch ticked 2:00.

"All right. We let it sit a few days, then do it again. Be sure it's clean. Jack, why dontcha come on and help me with the rest of this water. Gotta feed the still an' I'm sure Forrest been wonderin' where the hell I am."

Jack grimaced but nodded at his brother. Cricket nodded and put his hands in his pockets. "I should go help with the dishes 'fore everyone gits here fer suppertime." Howard had already walked off into the woods, and Cricket made his way off with a wave. "Jack! Let's go!" Howard yelled from the woods.

"Oh!" Jack looked at Alice and smiled "Are you comin' to the barn dance next week?"

"Well, if I'm invited. When next week?"

"Saturday."

She nodded. "I will."

That afternoon, after a bit more work in the house, Alice decided she'd return to the hotel and have her dinner brought upstairs so she could write to Lettie and retire early. As she was leaning over on the steps, packing up her items in her picnic basket, she heard some rustling sounds behind her. Expecting a deer, she froze, but the more she listened, the more she realized from the sounds that it couldn't be. Standing up and placing her hands on her hips, she turned slightly over her shoulder and said

"Jack, Howard will tan your hide if you don't help him fini-"

She paused when something deep in her gut told her it wasn't Jack Bondurant behind her. She turned her head a bit more and saw in her periphery the prohi from her hotel. Out here, looking for stills. And her gun on the table inside, where she'd placed it to keep it from getting wet as she hauled the water.

"And who might you be?" he purred.

She froze.


	7. Chapter 7

_Hi Everyone! I just wanted to say thanks for all of your favorites, follows, and all of your kind comments! In the first sequence we're taking it back to when Alice was younger, in the logging camps, to where she learned an important piece of advice that she uses to her advantage. _

**_Before:_**

* * *

At five o'clock in the evening, a soft crackling sound could be heard in the dimly lit bedroom of the timber tycoon's daughter, as a pair of soft, brown hands with impeccably clean fingernails gently put a vinyl record in place and set the phonograph needle down.

* * *

Queue Billie Holiday - "Easy to Love"

* * *

Outside, the light was fading in the mountains, and workers were shuffling back to camp to shower off and get a good hot meal in the canteen, maybe some drinks of moonshine outside on the back porch, maybe the comfort of a girl who had come to the logging camp to make money providing just that to the woodcutters.

A piano, soft trumpet music and the tempo of a band's music filled the room, followed shortly thereafter by the voice of Billie Holiday. Alice groaned, and pulled her left foot, which had been sticking out of her bedcovers, back underneath the warm darkness of the blankets. Lettie puttered around the room, slowly turning on lights to slowly phase Alice into a state where she was agreeable to waking. She closed the curtain, just to be sure, and lit the last lamp, the one by Alice's bedside table.

"Come on, you got to get up now! Guests comin' for drinks in 45 minutes. Heard the train whistle already."

Alice groaned again in reply. She had long ago learned to sleep through the train whistles that heralded new visitors to a logging camp, a train sometimes the only way to get in or out, and certainly the best way to move timber down from the mountains.

"Don't make me snatch that pillow right out from under yo face."

Alice groaned a third time and sat up, patting the pin curl clips holding her rolled finger waves in her hair, starting to fuss with them. Lettie swatted at her hand gently, and slid out of bed, her silk nightgown riding up as she stretched up and yawned. Lettie left for a moment and Alice plopped back down on the bed, yawning again. Lettie returned with Alice's long, slinky bias cut silk dress. It was a soft golden yellow, elegant and flattering, but Alice wasn't in the mood to wear it. She wanted to sleep. She'd been up since before dawn with her father, riding the trails to the different cutting sites. Lettie hung the dress on the back of the door and came back to her, gently guiding her arm so she'd stand and sit at her vanity.

"You got to go to dinner with your daddy now. I know you don' like to. I know you'd rather be up here, readin', or down in the canteen listening to music, or walkin' in the woods, but you gotta help your papa now, and he always say: 'Investors respond to three things: an organized camp, Canadian Whiskey, and charmin hosts.'"

Alice smiled, Lettie had always been especially good at mimicking her father's voice and expressions.

She huffed out air, plopped down and stared in the mirror. Lettie began pulling each of the pins out gently, and Alice leaned over beside the vanity to change the record, selecting something entirely different.

* * *

Queue Bessie Smith - "Sugar in My Bowl"

* * *

As the two sat together, Lettie pulling pins and Alice unenthusiastically applying makeup, the younger started singing along to her the sassy song coming out of the crackling speaker of the victrola: "Whassamatta hot papa come on and save your momma's soul, 'cause I need a little sugar in my bowl."

"What you know about 'sugar in my bowl?' Close your mouth. You need rouge."

Alice laughed. Lettie always had perspective. She let the other woman gently powder a bit of light pink blush on her face. She stood and changed into her undergarments and then let Lettie help her shimmy into her gown. As she slipped into her shoes, Lettie went to her armoire and shuffled around. Alice made her way to the mirror and looked at her reflection, checking the shape of her hair. As usual, it was perfect. Without Lettie she'd probably always look like she'd been sleeping in the pig pen with the hogs. She held out her arm for Lettie to place a tennis bracelet on it, and ducked when she needed to fasten Alice's diamond choker. Alice sighed again, looking at herself.

"I hate that I have to fuss. I thought we were safe in the woods."

Lettie laughed, that the child thought she needed protection from having to dress up but not from all of the things Lettie herself hated about the woods. She was always counting the days until they returned to Williamsburg, and later, to Charlotte. Alice sighed and looked down. Lettie moved around her and looked at her, gently taking her chin in her right hand.

"You listen here. I know you ain't fond of this, but you gotta go. And your papa's counting on you being pleasant. With me, you ain't got to be anyone different." Alice smiled; she loved it when Lettie said that.

"But not everybody's gonna feel about you how I do. The world, out there, it's not something you can predict. With them, when you got to prove somethin', when you got to protect yourself, you use that charm your daddy talks about. It'll get you everywhere. Just close your eyes, and turn it on. They'll never know what's inside."

* * *

**_Now:_**

* * *

Charley Rakes enjoyed being on assignment. He loved his job as Special Deputy, but much of his free time in Chicago was compromised by the lack of circles he was able to run in. Well respected, he nevertheless found himself restricted to socializing with only those Chicagoans who were friendly to prohibition agents, and so many of those he wished to sidle up to were professionally quite friendly but their personal approach to him wasn't the kind to afford him entree into their world, besotted as it was with illegal liquor. And the women in Chicago. Expensive and time consuming to find one he'd be willing to couple with. Liquor and jazz had tainted most of the young ladies he'd otherwise be interested in, and the rest he'd found boring, lacking a certain fire he knew he needed to keep him interested.

Enter this luscious little specimen. The one he'd been observing at the hotel. As if the Pierce Arrow weren't enough to demonstrate her taste (even Mason Wardell had turned his head when he heard her drive past one afternoon), he had watched her at breakfast in her fitted riding pants and bias cut day dresses and pretty wool suits breezing around that glamourless hotel, lighting it up like a still fire. Lighting him up. From his vantage point in the woods, once he'd come upon her, he watched her exchange pleasantries with those awful Bondurant boys. Too kind, too sweet. He could break her of that. Make her blink those wide brown eyes at him, make her lips tremble. His three piece suit started to feel warm on him. He stalked through he woods and approached her from behind, calling out to her.

"And who might you be?"

Alice knew who was behind her. Charley Rakes. The man Maggie had told her about, the one from the hotel. Very, very slowly, she started to turn until she faced him.

"I find it hard to believe that there is anyone a Special Deputy with the ATU doesn't know. Especially in a place like this." She stood there, raising her eyebrows. Rakes was holding a double barreled shotgun, and he had a revolver with a pearl handle in his belt loop. He scoffed, and broke apart the barrel, resting it on his left arm so he could put out his right hand, both to be friendly and to show her he didn't mean to shoot her.

"I'm Charley Rakes, I'm from Chicago." Alice put her hand out and shook, politely, but quickly. Softest gloves she'd ever seen on a man. Not soft and thick like her father's kidskin, more like thin rubber. Something about it was strange to her.

"I'm Alice. Ostergaard."

"And just what might you be doing out here?" He asked, looking her up and down. She immediately turned away, not without a wrinkle of her nose to show what she thought about the once-over, and started moving around, trying to pick up her things and put them in her picnic basket as quickly as possible so that she could head back to Blackwater Station.

"Fixing my uncle's house. " She wasn't going to give him any more information than he absolutely had to have, but neither did she want to alienate him so much that she made him angry. She had a habit of that as well.

Rakes looked at the house, and it was his turn to wrinkle his nose.

"I saw you at the hotel. You've got the Pierce-Arrow. Beautiful car." He was following behind her, and when she finally turned around, she was alarmed by how close he was to her, but attempted to show no emotion.

"Thank You." She tucked her arm through her picnic basket and stood to face him.

"Lots of beautiful things in Franklin since you got here."

"Well, I came just in time. The leaves are changing. The colors are certainly beautiful this time of year." Alice said, smiling, and tried to walk down the path past him but he stood in front of her and she stopped short.

"I have to ask you some questions." He said. "Shouldn't be but a moment," he lifted his right hand up and flicked his wrist and his fingers to show it wouldn't take much time.

"I haven't really the time right now, but I'm sure I can make an appointment at the Sheriff's office if you think there is anything I can be of help with." She assumed it was because she was friends with Jack and his brothers that he wanted to try to squeeze information out of her. She was just concerned about what else he might try to squeeze in the process.

He stepped close to her and stood a foot away. "I _can_ arrest you if you interfere with a federal investigation."

Alice looked at him incredulously "And how, exactly, is my shoddy attempt at repair work a interference with the federal government?"

Rakes' face went cold. "You have a smart mouth."

Alice smiled without opening her mouth. "I take no responsibility. My brain does all the work."

He laughed, angrily. "You're not getting out of these woods until you tell me about the Bondurants and their little operation."

With the basket still looped through her forearm, she crossed both arms across her chest. "And why would I know anything about that?"

"You're friendly with them." The way he said 'friendly' sounded as though he had tasted something bitter as he formed the word with his tongue.

"And?" She raised her eyebrows.

"And you're going to be friendly with me!" he snapped.

He leaned closer and she turned her head away, but she could feel his dark eyes on her delicate neck. Now, he frightened her. No, he had been frightening her, but now she was petrified. Her heart was beating quickly. Thoughts of a familiar, handsome, grumpy face, scratchy wool, grunts and nods, and the smells of liquor and soap and coffee and cigars crossed her mind, and she realized the only thing she wanted in that moment was Forrest.

No time to howl like she'd heard Howard do when the prohis came around. Only one thing left. Charm. She quickly calculated her distance to Blackwater Station. That was all she needed, to get there, and everything would be all right. She could see it through the trees from here. She thought Rakes would probably have a hard time running in those fancy shoes. And she had the advantage in her riding boots. Her gun was still on the table inside. Charm truly was her only option. She heard Lettie's voice in her mind _"Turn it on."_ She raised her eyes, opened her mouth slightly and fluttered her eyelashes ever so delicately. "Am I?"

Rakes' face relaxed. He put his hand out to suggest that she tell him whatever she was going to tell him.

She smiled her most convincing smile, hoping it would come off without evidence of her teeth chattering

"Follow me," she said, smiling. She put down her picnic basket. "I could see smoke rising from the hills over here a day or so ago," she pointed and went down to where a large pool of mud had formed during her cleanout of the well that afternoon with Howard, Jack & Cricket. "See? In between the trees there?"

Rakes squinted, but shook his head.

"Well, maybe they aren't tending it today. At any rate, you should check there." He stood near the mud, gingerly walking around it and staring out over the pond attempting to see the fictional still she was attempting to point out.

"I see nothing." Her mistake was that she turned to go back up the hill, and that was when Rakes grabbed her wrist and pulled her back to him, far too close to him, her back to the woods, Rakes' back to the pond. "You have to give me more than that." Alice's heart hammered in her chest and she laughed softly, moving her hand gently towards his chest, and he stiffened until she gently pinched his lapel

"Well, actually, I _was_ going to compliment your tailor," she said, batting her eyelashes and gagging inside. Her mind was racing and she was trying to remember the fights she'd seen in the camps. Trying to recall the times she'd seen a smaller person take the advantage. She had it.

"Were you?" He asked

"Mmm-hmm," she said, pursing her lips. "In fact," here she put her other hand up and took his other lapel in her hand, "I've been thinking that for some time. And you know what else?" She carefully stepped towards him and pressed herself in close, stepping her left leg between his feet, keeping her face relaxed though she wanted to scream. As she did this, he was distracted, just as she hoped, and she hooked her ankle around his foot without him noticing, feigning interest in whispering in his ear. But she didn't. She shoved Charley Rakes as hard as she could off the muddy embankment of the pond, tripping him over her boot just as she'd hoped. She didn't watch him fall, she only heard the splash. She had turned to run before that. But before she ran, she summoned every bit of breath inside her and shouted "Forrest!" as loud as she could, taking off through the woods in the direction of Blackwater Station.

Then she was tearing through the woods as quickly as she could, thinking only of the big mountain of a man she wanted to hide behind.

Forrest had been seated in his office, adding up sales in his ledger. No one else, not Maggie at the counter, nor Cricket washing dishes, heard his name being called through the trees, but he heard something, and he knew. He felt it, right where he thought later that his heart must be. Before he could even think to do so, he had jumped up from his desk chair, sending it hurling backwards across the room, and, stocking out, pulled his gun from the back of his pants as he burst through the door onto the porch. That's when he heard it again. "Forrest!" Her voice. Her. His heart swelled again and he panicked. Forrest Bondurant never raised his voice, but in spite of himself, he shouted "Alice!"


	8. Chapter 8

Queue Rosi Golan ft. Johnny McDaid - "Give Up the Ghost"

* * *

Alice tore through the woods, branches whipping at her face, unruly tree roots threatening to trip her as she flew by and over them. She waved her arms out in from of her to move aside branches in the way, avoiding the path she thought the prohi would take. She couldn't hear Rakes behind her, but she knew she'd have the advantage, not having to climb up out of the mud, for one. Second, she assumed his shiny dress shoes under his spats weren't such that she could imagine they'd have good traction. She would have laughed at the thought of him trying to climb out of the muck if she weren't so frightened. She could hear Forrest shouting for her. A sudden sharp pain stung her cheek as a branch cut into her skin, but she barely noticed. Because now she could see him. She was finally through the branches and on the red clay soil of Blackwater Station. He could see her too, she recognized. His big shoulders dropped a little in a sigh of relief when he saw her. She appeared to be all right He was striding towards her, his brass knuckles glinting against the reflection of the high afternoon sun as he clenched them around his fingers, his gun in his left hand. She kept her eyes on him, her mark, as she hustled towards the station. She was growing closer when she tripped over a stray log in her path and went down on her hands and knees in the dirt. Dizzy, she stared at the ground, fighting back tears. Forrest could see that she looked all right, as long as that fall hadn't hurt her. Except for that scrape on her cheek. He tucked his gun away and put the knuckles in his pocket...momentarily. He squatted down and put out his hands for her to hold.

"You awright?" He asked, sternly. She sniffled and looked up at him with wide, brown, watery eyes. Stray soft wavy curls had pulled free from the ribbon in her hair and fallen into her face. She sat back on her haunches and took his hands and met his eyes, a strange rushing feeling filling her belly and rushing up to her throat, like when her father had taken her to Atlantic City and she'd ridden the roller coaster for the first time. For his part, Forrest noticed an uncomfortable warming sensation deep in his stomach, like the time he'd had a glass of expensive scotch whiskey, only this time he felt like he'd had the whole bottle.

"The fuck's goin on?" Howard yelled, stomping through the woods towards she and Forrest. A guilty look passed over his face and he muttered a "sorry" when he noticed Alice was present. Jack crashed through the woods, bumbling after his older brother and nearly tripping himself. Unceremoniously, and with a great amount of strength, Forrest pulled Alice up to her feet, and she wiped her face, blood coming away on the back of her hand. All three stared at her, out of breath, and she noticed Cricket and Maggie on the porch. She glanced behind her again and her tears slipped free from where she'd been stubbornly keeping them.

"Well?" Jack said, wheezing. He leaned over, breathing heavily with his hands on his shins.

Alice took a deep breath and regained her posture.

"Rakes. He-" saw Forrest's eyes narrow and his entire forehead crinkle. "He came after me in the woods. He didn't….do anything…but I was afraid he would. He asked about y'all and then when I claimed not to know anything, he wouldn't let me leave."

Howard muttered "Asshole" and Jack said "Sumbitch."

But Forrest was silent.

"So…" she spoke slowly and deliberately. "I pretended to have….intentions which I **do NOT"** she emphasized this element in particular…so I could trick him into….." she suddenly realized what trouble she probably had caused "….into being tripped into the pond. Then I ran. I don't know if he was behind me."

"You threw Rakes in the pond?" Cricket yelled from the porch, a silly grin on his face.

"Jesus Christ, Cricket, shut up!" Howard shouted, spitting onto the ground disapprovingly.

"I think he may have just been trying to scare me, but I couldn't be sure he wouldn't….I just didn't have my gun is all. It was in the house. I carried that gun in camp in case I had to fire warning shots. There were bears and mountain lions, but oily prohis….I never thought….." She realized she was shaking.

Forrest was checking the bullets in his revolver. "Howard?" he asked.

"I'll get the shotgun." He said.

"No, wait." Alice said. "I don't want you going out there, but I'm sure I can't stop you, so I'm coming with you."

"No." Forrest said.

"But-" Alice started.

"No." Forrest said again. "You go on in the station with Maggie and Jack."

Alice paced the porch at Blackwater Station for the thirty minutes until they came back. Howard was carrying her picnic basket out in front of him with a look of awkward disgust. Forrest's eyes were narrowed, his face stony and unreadable.

"Gone." He said to no one in particular as he went inside, Howard following behind. If he were a man of more words, he would have told Alice that they had searched for that son of a bitch everywhere but all they saw were muddy tracks leading from the embankment, leading straight to the main road, and a set of car tracks suggested he, or one of his local lapdogs had sped away, afraid. He would tell her he was glad she was safe, and that he'd do anything if he thought he could keep her there, with him...safe. But he hoped she just knew that it wasn't over, that Rakes would pay for what he'd done. Howard put Alice's picnic basket on the bar, and she noticed for the first time that there was a group of light blue flowers that didn't bloom that time of year, sitting on top of the basket. Where could they have come from?

"Looks like he left these." Howard said.

"Any idea what it means?" Jack asked.

"Means he ain't finished." Howard said. Forrest slammed a cupboard he had gone into to get some witchazel for Alice's cut. And he slammed it hard.

* * *

Queue Jillete Johnson - "Torpedo"

* * *

"I know what it is." Alice moved towards it. She gingerly picked up the little blue bell shaped flowers.

"They're Virginia Bluebells. He's telling me I picked a side. Well, good...Cricket? Let me see that jar you've been working on?"

Wordlessly, from behind the counter, Cricket handed her a jar of moonshine he'd been slowly sipping at for two days. It was his own batch, and strong. Alice stalked out into the yard and threw the flowers dismissively on the ground, dousing them in shine before striking a match from a box in her pocket and throwing it onto the pile, incinerating the bouquet in a rush of fire. Tears slipped down her face. Tears of relief, mostly. Forrest watched her from the window, his eyes narrowed and his heart throbbing.


End file.
